Samsung Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Samsung - Research Paper Example Diversification of the company’s products has enabled it to become a global leader in the electronics industry. The company produces display devices, television sets, digital cameras and mobile phones. However, the company has ventured in the tablets market and has already become a major player in this division. Global Marketing Strategy A robust marketing has enabled Samsung electronics to stay ahead of its competition. The current business environment for electronics dictates that companies become customer-centric. This is whereby companies have to put customer needs first as they develop products or services. This has called for customization of products to the end user specifications or needs. However, the use of customization as a global marketing mix strategy comes into conflict with standardization. In Global marketing, a company needs to try to balance between these two strategies of marketing mix so as to remain relevant and stay ahead of competition (Armstrong and Ko tler 35). Globalization has for years been a disputed phenomenon in various ways including in definition, magnitude and effects. Thus a company should come up with most appropriate measure to handle it. A. Marketing Mix a) Product i. Standardization vs. Customization Standardization as a global marketing mix strategy implies an organizational design that is centralized. A company that adopts this strategy trades its products in one form. Benefits of adoption of this strategy include low operational costs and thus better economies of scale and uniformity of products. However, standardization has drawbacks of lack of competitive edge on products and is heavily reliant on economies of scale for profit margins. Customization on the other hand is a marketing mix strategy that implies an organizational design that is decentralized (Birnik and Bowman 70). This strategy is customer centered and considers needs of customers as per their location and needs. A company that adopts this strategy in its marketing mix benefits in an increase in its revenues since their products will have more appeal to customers. Disadvantages of this strategy include lack of benefit on economies of scale by a company and lack of uniformity in the global image of a company. Samsung Electronics has been successful in maintaining a trade-off between customization and standardization strategies with the help of the internet. According to Hadjinicola and Kumar there should be a combination of these strategies because it maximizes performance of an organization (62). The company has established divisions depending with regions and continents where they are able to customize their products to needs of locals while at the same time availing some non-localized products in these markets. The company has also placed applications for the devices they sell on the internet with and option of individual customization. Using these ways the company has been able to cater for traveling customers and well as local residents in a market. A level of cooperation between the subsidiary products and the parent product optimizes the performance of company products in the market. ii. Cultural Factors Culture of people in a region plays a very key role in determination of a company’s strategic approach in international markets. This is a very vital consideration especially in product advertising and